The Inquisitr » hp

HP Mini 110 Arrives At AT&T, Gets Subsidized, Offers Same Specs As Verizon Model

James Allen Johnson — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:57:51 +0000

Verizon Wireless is October added the HP Mini 110 netbook to their lineup of offered devices and proceeded to subsidize the device to any data seeking users who came their way. Now AT&T is following suit, offering the same exact Netbook with built in AT&T 3G data connectivity, opposed to Verizon EV-DO service.

The netbook arrives on November 22nd for a price of $199 after a mail-in-rebate, 2 year contract and minimum monthly data plans.

The Mini 110 features Windows 7, a 10.1 inch LED backlit display with anti-glare and 1GB RAM, plus the already mentioned 3G service and a 160GB hard drive. Everything is pretty standardk netboo fare right down to the Intel Atom processor.

You’ll need to sign up for at least an AT&T DataConnect plan which provides 200MB of data per month for $35 or you can grab their $60 plan that provides 5GB monthly transfer rates.

Then again you could just go drop $300 on a decent netbook with the same or even better pricing and specs over Black Friday and not have to worry about shoddy 3G service you’ll experience in many 3G areas or for that matter a 2 year contract.

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina Launches Senate Bid

AHN — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:50:13 +0000

San Diego, CA (AHN) – Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO who served as campaign adviser to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in last year’s presidential race, officially began her campaign for the Senate on Wednesday with a concession to critics who had questioned her spotty voting record.

The 55-year-old launched her 2010 bid with an op-ed with the Orange County Register that said, “Admittedly, I have not always been engaged in the electoral process, and I should have been. For many years I felt disconnected from the decisions made in Washington and, to be honest, really didn’t think my vote mattered because I didn’t have a direct line of sight from my vote to a result.”

“I realize that thinking was wrong,” she added. “As I grew throughout my career, beginning as a secretary and eventually becoming a CEO, I saw how government impacted business… I now understand, in a very real way, that the decisions made by the Senate impact every family and every business, of any size, in America.”

Fiorina also issued a volley against the incumbent she is seeking to unseat, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), a five-term congresswoman and three-term senator who is currently Chief Deputy Whip and chairperson of the Senate Environment Committee.

“Does California have the representation we deserve? The clear answer is no,” Fiorina wrote. “Barbara Boxer has been a senator for almost 18 years. During that time, she’s only gotten three laws enacted – naming a river in Virginia, a courthouse in Fresno, and bringing bridge repair money to the Bay Area, where she is from. One piece of real work in 18 years isn’t much of a track record.”

Fiorina had long been expected to throw her hat in the race, but she underwent surgery for breast cancer in March. In September, she launched an exploratory committee amid criticisms from State Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, a conservative who launched his campaign in April, that she had voted only in a handful of the 18 state and national elections held since 2000.

DeVore, who previously served as an aide to former Rep. Chris Cox and as Irvine city commissioner, on Wednesday said in a statement, “Fiorina’s arrival means Republican voters have a clear choice in this primary: between an establishment-picked, big-government moderate with lots of cash but little experience in public life — and a volunteer-supported, proven conservative with a long record of civic engagement.”

The 47-year-old DeVore has received the endorsement of the Senate Conservative Fund and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), while Fiorina has the backing of five former California Republican Party chairmen.

A Standford University graduate, Fiorina served as campaign surrogate and economic adviser to McCain. Despite having caused controversy by saying she “doesn’t think John McCain could run a major corporation,” she was said to have been shortlisted for Republican vice presidential nominee.

She is a recipient of the 2002 Appeal of Conscience Award and the 2004 Leadership Award from the Private Sector Council. She was ousted out of HP in 2005, a year after she was appointed by the White House to the U.S. Space Commission.

HP Mini 311 Gets Windows 7, New Hardware

James Allen Johnson — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:46:46 +0000

The HP Mini 311 is one of the first netbooks to ditch XP and grab onto Windows 7. HP announced that their critically lauded netbook will get the new OS as soon as it’s commercially available, they’ve also announced several other spec upgrade options.

The Mini 311 will get the ION treatment, a max memory load of 3GB and a decent size 80GB SSD or 320GB standard hard drive upgrade option.

Users can also choose to upgrade (at a cost) to Windows 7 Professional.

The new options have been made available via the HP Mini 311 maintenance guide, which means it could be a while before all the new options show up or it could be available on October 22nd. We’ll post more once info becomes available.

Intel’s dirty laundry getting aired by the EU

Steven Hodson — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 02:57:24 +0000

Ever wondered what was behind that $1.45 billion dollar fined that the European Union levied against Intel?

Well the EU’s antitrust division has released a public version of its May ruling against Intel and boy it isn’t pretty. Part of the ruling found that Intel had had issued “conditional rebates” to Dell from December 2002 to December 2005 – the condition being that it would only give rebates to Dell if they bought only Intel microprocessors.

In an internal Dell presentation in February, 2003, a Dell official noted that if Dell switched any of its microprocessor supplies from Intel to AMD, Intel’s retaliation could be “severe and prolonged with impact to all lines of business.” In a February, 2004, email, a Dell executive wrote that Intel executives were prepared for all-out war if Dell joined the exodus to buy AMD chips. Dell would have gotten zero market development funds for at least a full quarter. Intel would also use the market development funds not used by Dell to fund competitors to Dell.

Source: VentureBeat – EU releases dirty details of evidence against Intel in antitrust case

Apparently the same deal was applied to HP during November 2002 to May 2005 where any rebates were conditional on HP buying 95 percent of its processors for business desktops from Intel. Like the other two NEC was as well told that they would need to buy no less than 80 percent of its microprocessors for desktops and notebooks from Intel in order to qualify for rebates.

This kind of business practice was also extended to what was termed as “naked restrictions”. This tied Intel payments to HP, Acer and other companies on these companies limiting the types of AMD based systems sold to specific channels or by delaying the launch of AMD based systems. In an internal HP email in September 2004 an executive stated: “You can NOT use the commercial AMD line in the channel in any country, it must be done direct. If you do and we get caught (and we will) the Intel moneys is gone. The risk is too high.”

Of course Intel is contesting the decision citing – “There is nothing new here. This Decision reflects the underlying bias we have come to expect from the case team that ran this investigation.”

HP DreamScreen Shouldn’t Be Called A Digital Photo Frame

James Allen Johnson — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:52:42 +0000

The HP DreamScreen 100 and 130 models aren’t your typical digital picture frames. Sure they show your photos, but they also stream photos and music and play your videos. Oh yeah, they also connect directly to Pandora and they can manage your social networking too.

The 100 model offers a relatively large 10.2 inch display while the 130 matches most low end notebooks at 13.3 inches. They also both features 2GB of included storage and the ability to use a flash card or USB for more storage space and simple data transportation. Speaking of simple data transport, the program includes a drag and drop interface via PC software.

Both HP Dreamscreens also feature Facebook support, access to Pandora and even Snapfish photo abilities. While all of the functions on the application can be accessed via the devices included remote or directly from their screens.

The DreamScreen 100 will cost you $250 and is already available. The DreamScreen 130 on the other hand won’t be available until Fall 2009 and will to priced to move at $300. [via Gizmodo]

HP Printer App Store Revealed. See What You’ve Done Apple!

James Allen Johnson — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 18:17:50 +0000

A few months back HP announced their Photosmart Premium with TouchSmart Web Printer. With that printer came the promise of an App Studio for the web and touch friendly printer. Now that App Studio has officially been revealed by HP.

The printers apps already allow users to take advantage of such printer friendly online options as movie tickets, photos from Flickr accounts, art projects from Disney and even articles taken from CBS’s popular 60 minutes programming.

While the apps available are still extremely limited HP has offered an open API to programmers in the hopes that it will help spur new applications for the TouchSmart Web offering. In fact given it’s open nature and large push by HP, we won’t be surprise to see the technology creep up on more of their printers in the near future.

To be honest, I’m not sure how much time I would spend sitting in front of my printer trying to find movie tickets to print or articles to read. The app store just seems like a case of “Apple Syndrome” at this point, in which a company releases an app store in the hopes of receiving programmer based applications, while reaping the benefits from programs they didn’t have to create on their own. Then again I can’t fault HP for making some extra cash, but if games appear on a printer I’m throwing in the towel.

Mysterious Unsolicited Government Laptops Now Under Investigation

James Allen Johnson — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 00:02:42 +0000

In the past week unsolicited HP and Compaq (another HP brand) laptops have been showing up at various US Governement agencies, with about 5 laptops arriving at each location in West Virginia, Vermont, Wyoming, and Washington.

Now it has recently been learned that the gesture in at least three of those cases were made by an unscrupulous source using stolen credit cards.

The laptops were never used and in some cases were sent to local officials for investigation. While it appears they were delivered directly from HP some local law enforcement agencies are worried that malicious spyware may have been installed on the machines, spyware that in turn could be used to steal state secrets. [via Engadget]

Who’s giving US governors free laptops?

Steven Hodson — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 04:05:16 +0000

Either has somebody has a really big heart and is trying to help out cash strapped governors some free HP laptops or some creative soul is trying a new way to source government secrets. It turns out that officials in 10 states have received free laptops which needless to say has drawn the attention of State Police and the FBI.

In West Virginia laptops were received at the governor’s office and after checking their records to find that they hadn’t order them. State officials in Vermont say that they have received the same kind of unsolicited laptops.

The laptops sent to the Wyoming governor’s office arrived in two separate shipments on Aug. 3 and Aug. 6, according to Cara Eastwood, a spokeswoman for Governor Freudenthal.

"We received one package, opened it and realized that it was an error since no one in our office had ordered them," she said. "The next day we received another package. At this point we realized that they needed to be turned over to law enforcement."

Although there is no evidence that the computers contain malicious code, HP confirmed Thursday that there have been several such orders and that they have been linked to fraud. "HP is aware that fraudulent state government orders recently have been placed for small amounts of HP equipment," spokeswoman Pamela Bonney said in an e-mail message. "HP took prompt corrective action to address the fraudulent orders and is working with law enforcement personnel on a criminal investigation."

Source: The Standard – FBI investigating laptops sent to US governors

Former HP CEO Carly Fiorina Begins Exploratory Committee In Senate Bid

AHN — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 15:01:44 +0000

San Diego, CA (AHN) – Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO who served as campaign adviser to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in last year’s presidential race, has established an exploratory committee in her bid to take the seat of Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) in 2010.

The 54–year-old Republican had been expected to register a committee for months, but she underwent surgery for breast cancer in March.

Fiorina needs to win the GOP nomination during the California’s June 8 primary next year before she can take on Boxer, a five-term congresswoman and three-term senator who is currently Chief Deputy Whip. The primary is likely to be highly contentious, as her potential rival has already heightened attacks.

State Assemblyman Chuck DeVore said in response to Fiorina’s new exploratory committee, “I don’t expect to see Fiorina out talking to the grassroots, taking her case personally to concerned voters. This campaign won’t be decided by slick ads from a Hollywood PR firm, nor by retreads from the ‘08 McCain campaign, nor by the D.C. party establishment that gave up on California years ago.”

DeVore, a former aide to former Rep. Chris Cox and Irvine city commissioner, also criticized Fiorina’s record, citing reports saying the former Hewlett-Packard chief did not vote in 13 of the past 18 elections, and had supported the federal bailout under the Bush administration last year “so long as the high-tech industry got its share of the corporate welfare.”

You to can now have a monitor wall – or pretty damn close

Steven Hodson — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 22:45:37 +0000

I still remember when I first hooked up a second monitor and found myself in dual monitor heaven. I wouldn’t ever want to go back to a single monitor unless absolutely forced to. Two monitors as nice as that might be is slowly becoming ‘old school’ as we are slowly getting the tools needed to attach even more monitors to our desktop computers.

Much like the team over at SlipperyBrick did when they heard about HP’s new USB graphics adapter that will let you connect .. get ready for it …. seven monitors and via USB.

Damn.

Their report on this wondrous event can be read on their site but the sort of it is that with the exception of video under certain conditions being problematic the whole experience was rather cool:

What did work well however is any graphics or video that we viewed through a browser or setup as a background display. (We had a little help from UltraMon for the background displays.) We used the Internet Explorer browser and were able to easily view a different web page on each monitor with a different browser instance, and were able to span a single browser across all monitors without noticing even a stutter. We could even open large images in a browser window and span that across all seven displays with little noticeable increase in the processor work.

Damn.

Printing to the music

Steven Hodson — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:25:00 +0000

There are all kinds of interesting stuff being these days when it comes to advertising products, especially from recognizable brands like HP. All it takes is a bunch of people with some unique ideas and a a company willing to go out on a limb and try something new.

In this case HP is promoting a recent project from a pair of graphic design graduates, Matt Robinson and Tom Wrigglesworth, where they wanted to show how HP workstations and printers could be used, along with some music, to bring ideas to life.

HP – invent from Tom and Matt on Vimeo.

hat tip toMy Modern Metropolis

New Black Eyed Peas Video….or is it an Ad for HP?

Duncan Riley — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 05:58:02 +0000

The Black Eyed Peas are back with a new album and the video for the first single “Boom Boom Pow” has been released.

The premise of the fairly understated video is to show the band going “into the digital afterlife.” Says Fergie: “So the transformation is us going into a sort of birth or cocoon…And coming out the other end as forms of energy. It’s a parallel to the music industry. Now everything is downloaded.”

The one interesting thing in the video is the opening scene and the final scene: The first 5 seconds focuses on a band member using a HP Touchsmart. The final scene zoom back to show the same HP, although there’s no mention of the Touchsmart on screen…instead you clearly see the HP logo.

Fergie has already appeared in HP commercials late last year, so the tie-in is not surprising. The blatant nature though is something a little special. I guess musicians raging against corporations are a thing of the past, replaced instead by the offer of high paying product placements.

Here’s the ~~HP advertisement~~ Black Eyed Peas Boom Boom Pow video:

5 Top Green Laptops

Steven Hodson — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:28:30 +0000

One of the growing concerns in the tech industry is the problems we face with e-waste. You know all those used up and old computers and other technological wonders we are constantly upgrading from and are full of all kinds of toxic wonders. Everything from arsenic to lead and mercury being leached into the ground and table water from improper disposal.

So many computer companies who don’t want to appear to be contributing to this growing mess are starting to paint themselves green. Well not literally painting themselves green but rather trying to produce products that are more ecologically responsible. Emilia Johansson; in a guest post at EcoGeek, took some time to put together a list of the top 5 green laptops on the market

Lenovo Thinkpad X301
The Lenovo Thinkpad X300 was one of only 15 notebooks to receive the EPEAT Gold certification, a sophisticated standard by which a device’s components pass evaluation in terms of eco-friendliness. Its successor, the X301 follows the same standards, but comes with faster and even more efficient components – all in a professional-looking and highly portable package.

For starters, this laptop features mercury-free LEDs in the display. Its low-voltage processor can stretch battery life with the aid of special efficiency software, and the package that the notebook comes in is now 90 percent recyclable. Additionally, the packaging doesn’t include any cadmium, lead or arsenic.

Toshiba Portégé A600
The Toshiba A600 is Gold EPEAT certified and Energy Star 4.0 compliant; it boasts a few green attributes that set it apart from other eco-friendly notebooks. For instance, the laptop uses a processor that runs on extremely low voltage, but processes at 1.4GHz.

With an LED backlit screen, the Toshiba Portégé A600 is thin (less than an inch) and weighs only 3.2 pounds. Toshiba also earned praise from environmental groups with a promise to cut down dramatically on the use of harmful chemicals in their PCs over the next several years.

HP 2730p Tablet
HP stepped into the green laptop market with the HP 2710p Tablet. This eco-friendly notebook’s claim to green fame is a longer battery life, estimated at around six hours. The laptop is Energy Star compliant and comes with low voltage Intel processors at speeds ranging from 1.2GHz to 1.6GHz.

ASUS Eee PC 1000HE
This revolutionary laptop is one of the quaintest, greenest and most aesthetically pleasing notebooks on the market. The 1000HE model has a 10-inch screen and weighs just two pounds.

The super-efficient Atom processor uses no more than three watts and the intelligent “Super Hybrid Engine” can automatically sense changes in the power needs of the CPU and components, adjusting voltage and LCD brightness to maximize energy efficiency.

Apple MacBook Air
This gorgeous laptop is also one of the greenest available. The display on the MacBook Air is without arsenic or mercury and the case is made from recyclable aluminum.
While it does have a very powerful processor, which runs on approximately 14 watts, the laptop does qualify for the EnergyStar 4.0 certification. Apple also paid attention to the MacBook Air’s packaging, reducing the amount of potential waste by roughly half.

The 20 Most Trusted Companies For Privacy

JR — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:40:26 +0000

The Ponemon Institute and TRUSTe have released their annual list of the most trusted companies when it comes to consumer privacy. The list features the addition of Facebook into the top ranks, and the conspicuous absence of Google, which had ranked #10 in 2007.

The list is the result of a nationwide survey of nearly 6,500 U.S. adults. The participants were asked which companies they thought best safeguarded their personal information.

Coming in top for the second consecutive year was American Express, followed by eBay, IBM, and Amazon. Apple, Yahoo, Microsoft, and HP all saw improved rankings from 2007 as well.

Here’s the full top 20 and how much they climbed/slipped from last year:

1. American Express (remained number one)
2. eBay (+6)
3. IBM (no change)
4. Amazon (+1)
5. Johnson & Johnson (+1)
6. Hewlett Packard (+10)
6. U.S. Postal Service (+1)
7. Procter & Gamble (+2)
8. Apple (new to the top 20)
9. Nationwide (remained the same)
10. Charles Schwab (-8)
11. USAA (+4)
12. Intuit (+7)
13. WebMD (-1)
14. Yahoo! (new to the top 20)
15. Facebook (new to the top 20)
16. Disney (-1)
16. AOL (-12)
17. Verizon (new to the top 20)
18. FedEx (new to the top 20)
19. US Bank (-2)
20. Dell (-7)
20. eLoan (-9)

Fergie HP Commercial avoids showing Fergie’s head

Duncan Riley — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 01:47:22 +0000

Stacy Ann Ferguson, aka Fergie, solo artist and vocalist for the Black Eyed Peas has appeared in a new commercial for HP.

Fergie, now known as “The Digital Duchess,” runs through her various uses of her HP computer in the one minute spot:

“My computer is like a virtual autobiography… I love finding new dance moves online… Totally reminds me of my first tour with the Peas… Check it out, my new shoe line. Working on an eco-friendly style next. Green is the new black, baby… My computer holds my past but there’s plenty of room in there for my future.”“My computer is like a virtual autobiography… I love finding new dance moves online… Totally reminds me of my first tour with the Peas… Check it out, my new shoe line. Working on an eco-friendly style next. Green is the new black, baby… My computer holds my past but there’s plenty of room in there for my future.”

The interesting part of the commercial isn’t yet another popstar pimping computers for a living, it’s what’s missing from the commercial: Fergies head!

Most of the time all we see of Fergie is her body, and occasionally the very bottom of her head, including chin and mouth. Where her head comes into full shot (nearly) at 0:45, it is obscured by some sort of large plastic object.

Fergie does have an amazing voice, but a stint on crystal meth left her early attractive looks looking a little the worse for wear. Still, to nearly entirely exclude the head of a celebrity in a celebrity endorsement is taking things to extremes…her head may be a little wicked, but it doesn’t scare small children…well mostly.

Here’s the (mostly) headless Fergie HP commercial:

HP, Intel, and Yahoo Get Into Cloud Computing

JR — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 15:39:35 +0000

The cat’s out of the bag: HP, Intel, and Yahoo are teaming up to create a new testing center for cloud computing research.

The three companies announced the news this morning. They’re working with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, along with research centers in Singapore and Germany, to create six “centers of excellence.” In non-marketing speak, that means six places with cloud infrastructures using HP hardware, Intel processors, and open source software developed under Yahoo’s watch. The programs include Apache Hadoop and Pig, a parallel programming language Yahoo Research helped head up.

The goal of the whole thing is to let educators and researchers experiment on an Internet-wide level. Want to read more? A full seven pages await you in the company’s official release.

Intel

Yahoo

Microsoft Nabs New Search Distribution Deal

JR — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 14:28:44 +0000

Microsoft has signed a new deal with HP that it hopes will boost its search traffic.

The software giant has secured rights to have Internet Explorer pre-installed with Live Search as the default option on all new HP computers in the U.S. and Canada. The IE installation will also include the Live Search toolbar.

Microsoft has similar arrangements with Lenovo. Google is partnered up with Dell and Mozilla to be the default search site — something Microsoft’s CEO knows all too well.

“Every Dell machine we buy at home that comes with the Google toolbar,” Steve Ballmer told a group of employees during a May gathering, according to the Associated Press. “It’s not a good day in my family when that happens,” he added, vowing to invest more in distribution deals for the future.

Microsoft researchers say about 40 percent of computer users stick with whatever default search site is set on their new computer.